Geo-Levitronics
There is a common perception that vehicles of the future will be capable of hovering and flying. This ability to levitate would provide significant benefits to military, commercial, and personal transportation. If man can make an object levitate it will likely be by applying currently known science. It is unlikely that gravitation, itself, will be controllable since there are no current practical examples of antigravity or even gravitational manipulation. Some other mechanism will have to be employed to oppose the gravitational force that holds matter to the Earth. The term “Geo-levitronics” is employed herein for the study of such a mechanism and the names “Geo-levitron” or “Geolev” are used to describe a device that could be made to levitate within the Earth's gravitational field.
Traditionally transport through the atmosphere relied on manipulating the atmosphere itself. Crafts such as hot air balloons and zeppelins use the buoyant effects of the atmosphere to lift and support themselves. They use a fabric enclosed volume filled with a gas lighter than the atmosphere. The drawback is that these vehicles are large and bulky and cannot move with any effective speed. Airplanes rely on their rapid forward motion to create lift as they “plane” through the air. They must be in motion to create this lifting effect. Hovering craft such as helicopters force air downwards to create lift. These can be effective, maneuverable craft, but they consume a great amount of energy to maintain flight and are highly complex machines.
Other craft such as rockets do not use the atmosphere to lift themselves. They create their own thrust by burning fuels and directing the discharging gas downwards against the pull of gravity. They are somewhat limited to vertical motion and are less practical as a means of transport within the Earth's gravitational field.
Magnetic levitation has been used to raise vehicles such as trains or monorails. This has been shown to be effective but travel is limited to magnetic rail beds that must be constructed and supported on the ground.
Geomagnetic Levitronics
Since gravity is what binds objects to the surface of the Earth a force must be found to oppose it. Magnetic forces exist and can be manipulated relatively easily. While magnetism does not directly act with or against gravity it can be made to interact with the Earth's magnetic field to produce buoyancy or a levitation effect, to oppose the force of gravity. This application of science is termed geomagnetic levitronics herein and the purpose of this discussion is to outline its practical application to making matter float within the Earth's magnetic field.
Charges in Motion
It is a well-studied phenomenon that a charged particle moving through a magnetic field is deflected by that field. In 1897 J. J. Thompson, working at Cambridge University, discovered this effect by studying charges moving in a vacuum. This led to the discovery of the electron and the development of the cathode ray tube. This principle is employed in every television picture tube and computer CRT.
In 1879 Edwin Hall, at Johns Hopkins University, found that the same principle applies to current moving through a conductor. The relationship is the vector product:F=qv×B Or in scalar notation:F=qvB sin θWhere:F=force acting on the charged particle, or Lorentz Force (Newton)q=the amount of charge on the particle (Coulomb)v=the velocity of the particle (meter/second)B=the magnitude of the magnetic field (Tesla)θ=the smaller angle between vectors v and B (degree)In the case of current moving inside a conductor located at a right angle to a magnetic field:θ=90°, sin θ=1q=−e (the charge on an electron, or −1.60×10−19C)v=vd (the drift velocity of electrons, or ˜106 m/s)the force acting upon each electron becomes:Fe=−evdB The total force on N electrons is:F=ΣFe=−NevdB 
Referring to FIG. 1 of the drawings hereof, in a segment of a conductor with length L, cross sectional area A, and a charge density of n this may be written as:F=−nALevdB Relating this to the definition of current, i, wherei=−nAevd:F=i LBSolving for the current, i:i=F/LB The Earth's Magnetic Field
Through a plane which contains the Earth's equator a uniform magnetic field exists and is directed from geographic south to north. When viewed from above (northern perspective) the lines of the magnetic field are directed upwards at the observer. A positively charged particle moving from west to east is acted on by a force in a direction away from the Earth.
Solving for the amount of current to produce 1 Newton of lift force per unit length (1 meter) of conductor near the Earth's surface where the strength of the magnetic field is approximately 10−4 Telsa (by definition 1 Tesla=1 Newton/Ampere meter):i=1N/(1m)(10−4N/Am)=104A 
10,000 amps are required to obtain one Newton (0.2248 lbf) of levitation force per meter of conductor length. Therefore it takes a very high amount of current to yield any meaningful lift force. This kind of current density, however, is not out of the realm of possibility for a superconductor. Superconductors are materials that conduct with no resistance. The conducting electrons in a superconductor are truly free to move through the material with no thermal energy loss. Currents created in superconducting loops have continued for years without losing strength.